I can't speak for Sri Aurob, but I think sometimes they would say, you know, the Vipassana group, is that correct? The Vipassana Meditation Center? And I don't know, however, how much emphasis they're putting on Samatha, that spirit rock. But I think some people who are teaching so-called Vipassana in the West, from the Theravada tradition, do not emphasize Samatha too much. And there is a kind of, what's the word, I don't know if I'm supposed to say controversy, but a long time ago there was the dry insight people and the wet insight people. And so the dry insight people are the people who say, you can go into insight practice

[01:22]

without developing the concentration practices. And the wet insight people are the ones who say, you have to do a lot of concentration work together to have insight. And so one of the main texts in the Theravada tradition, the most popular text, is called the Visuddhimagga. It's laid out in three sections. The first section is on the precepts, or ethical discipline. The second section on Samadhi, the Jhanas, and the third section on Paññā, wisdom. And some people say you can go from the first section on the precepts to the third section. You don't have to get into the Samadhi section. But other people say, you have to practice Samadhi before developing insight. And that's the tranquility part. That's the tranquility part.

[02:32]

So you can go straight into vipassana without tranquility? Well, you know, it's hard to say. Like, if you look at the... it's hard to say that that ever happens, that someone has insight without Chalmanta. It's hard to evaluate. If you look at the story of the Buddha, he met his first students, those five people, and he had face-to-face meeting with them. And he taught them Dharma. He taught them insight work. He gave them wisdom teachings in the first lecture. However, the people he was talking to were highly developed tranquility people. These were people who had concentration skills comparable to the Buddha. So he didn't have to teach them concentration practices. They already knew how to do them, and they probably were in a state of concentration when he gave them the teaching. And then there's

[03:37]

other cases, too, where Buddha... actually many cases where the Buddha met lay people, who are not professional yogis, maybe, but he saw them and he thought they were ready for the insight teaching. Now, it doesn't say, there's some debate then about whether they were actually in the state of Chalmanta when he met them. So the Sambhidharmachana Sutra is saying, if you're doing insight meditation and you have not yet attained the state of Chalmanta, it's not insight. It's an intensified effort concordant with insight. It may be the same words of the instruction, but it's saying it won't be insight if you don't have tranquility. There's some difference of opinion here. And then there's many Zen stories where a monk is walking around, meets a Zen teacher, the Zen teacher has this meeting with him, this face-to-face meeting, and the Zen teacher gives him a teaching, and the person wakes up. And then people could say,

[04:41]

well, the person was in a state of tranquility. They just didn't tell you that the person did his tranquility meditation, then entered into tranquility, and then he went to see the Zen teacher. They just don't tell you that part. But in actual practice, you have many cases where people are studying Zen or some other form of the Buddha Dharma, studying Zen in particular, they go see the teacher, the teacher says, go back and sit some more. They come see the teacher, the teacher says, go back and sit some more. And then finally they get concentrated enough so the teacher gives them a teaching and they sink in, precipitates insight. So some people may be concentrated or in a state of tranquility, even though they didn't consciously or explicitly do any kind of shamatha practice where they gave up discursive thought. But people sometimes do give up discursive thought kind of naturally or effortlessly. Like I say, if you're tightrope

[05:46]

walking, especially if you're not very good at tightrope walking, if you're up on the rope, you're not thinking about tomorrow or yesterday. And if you're not very good at tightrope walking, you cannot afford to think of anything other than balancing. But you're not necessarily trying to give up discursive thought explicitly, but in fact you are trying to give up discursive thought so you can concentrate on balance. And you may notice that if you do think about anything, as anybody looking, you lose your balance. Does that make sense? So I kind of feel that in some ways it doesn't make any sense. I shouldn't say it doesn't make any sense, but to me it doesn't really make much sense that you could have insight if you haven't realized a mind, because you're too stiff and stable and flexible. It's hard to let the mind take in this

[06:51]

teaching which is going to transform your whole perspective if you're not relaxed and calm. Some people are relaxed and calm, but they don't really know about some technical shamatha practice. But somehow being a carpenter, or being an acrobat, or being... And Buddha uses examples. So

[21:34]

I have to turn my arms around. You want people to find that, and there's a way, but in the process of not finding it, you're really just looking for it. Okay?

[23:08]

Okay. Okay. It's actually a sudden taste of giving up discursive thought. It may be easier to do it gradually. Gradually means, I'm trying to give up discursive thought, but as you see right now, I'm not giving it up because I'm talking about how hard it is. But I like the idea of it, but actually I don't have to really... I haven't even got into it yet, and this is quite comfortable. But imagine what it would be like if I stopped this completely and just... I'm in real silence. That would really be... I can imagine that would be a big shock if I actually shut up for a little while.

[24:25]

I mean, totally went quiet. But I don't have that problem. Whereas without trying to shut up, if you just turn around and look at the... try to find your thinking, not... there won't be any talking in that, except... Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Okay, stop saying that and now look. There's no talk in there when you look that way. And it's kind of a shock. But if you can actually keep looking that way, it's a... you know... your mind will be transformed. Not just turned around, but transformed. And then once it's transformed, then you can transform it again and again through further meditations. Yes? Well, I think the experience that... when I try to... when I compose a practice, that there is often a moment where there's almost this background noise in my head. It's of course not a noise, but I see this...

[25:27]

this really quick, rapid, enormous amount of thoughts just going by like this. And so there is something that's observing that. Something is observing that, yeah? But that... to me that... that quivering with your hand, that's... that reminds me... what do you think that reminds me of? Claiming chickens. Huh? Exactly! Claiming chickens? Claiming chickens. It's a secret. But it's okay to... That buzzing is discursive thought. That discursive thought. That disturbance that's always around the neighborhood.

[26:29]

Not always, but... The disturbance there is a discursive thought. That tension in the system. And if you give it up, the whole situation starts calming down. Without trying to push it away. When you start calming down, maybe you feel more clearly the irritating, disturbing quality of discursive thought. In its very subtle version, rather than big chunky words and sentences and stuff. But just the mind sort of watching this buzzing is enough. Enough to still sense it. So maybe that's pretty close to... and maybe that buzzing won't be so difficult to give up, as some kind of like interesting dialogue or conversation. So maybe you actually got close to giving up discursive thought because the big chunky stuff isn't there, and you're just down to the buzzing. And then if you can just relax with the buzzing, you can get really quiet.

[27:32]

Again, as you get quieter, then you notice more subtle buzzings. And then you let go of those, you get quieter, and then even more subtle buzzing. But you can get quite concentrated without the buzzing being completely silenced. And being fairly quiet is often sufficient to enter into this tranquility, which becomes quite serviceable before there's no buzzing whatsoever. Yes? Yes and yes? Speaking of buzzing, occasionally I have ringing in the ears. That's 30 years of being around heavy equipment. Is that discursive thought, even though it's not voice, but it's sound? You know, it's there in the mind. I kind of feel like it's not discursive thought. I think it's more like...

[28:35]

In some sense, it's not so much the background noise of your mind, I think, but more the background noise of your blood in your ear. Right? I think so. I don't think it's discursive thought. Yes? May I have three questions? Two? There's one. You get one, you get one more. Could you please speak about applied thought and sustained thought? Applied and sustained? Yes. That's sort of a tool, so... So, applied... Sanskrit for this is vichara. Sustained, vichara.

[29:40]

And vichara actually is also sometimes translated as discursive. And these two are very important in development concentration. So actually, vichara means like when you... to apply the mind to... to the breath, or apply the mind to the instruction. Of giving up discursive thought. Apply the mind to various concentration instructions or images. And apply the mind to the image of a Buddha. If you can look at a statue of a Buddha, a painting of a Buddha, apply your mind to that shape. And use it to actually clearly put your mind on the shape. Or a circle.

[30:43]

That's vicharga. Application of mind. And then, vichara is actually a little discursive, where you actually vibrate a little bit, like this buzzing, you vibrate a little bit with the object of meditation. And you use those actually, you use those two aspects of mind to... Well, actually they're being used in applying themselves. You apply yourself to the instruction to apply the mind, and you apply, and you vibrate a little bit, or a little discursive, to make the instruction into a coherent sentence, for example. At the beginning of meditation, you're still using these two types of thought to concentrate. And then you use them all, you use them as fully as you can on the meditation. So you actually use discursive thought,

[31:44]

you completely use up discursive thought on giving up discursive thought. So you apply your mind to the instruction, giving up discursive thought, and you apply your mind to the image of the breath, or the image of the posture, or the image of a Buddha, or you apply your mind, you can also apply your mind to loving-kindness meditation, to that. But, of course, loving-kindness meditation being maybe sometimes several sentences, you apply your mind, you vitarka your mind to the sentence, may all beings be happy, for example, and live in peace. You apply yourself to that, and you use vichara to be able to say the sentence. But then you totally put all your vichara into the meditation. All your vitarka into the meditation, so you're totally zapped onto the meditation object,

[32:45]

and you use, and also you use all your discursive thought on the meditation object. So, and again, I like to give up discursive thought, you would use all your discursive thought on I like to give up discursive thought. And when you totally exhaust the vitarka and vichara, in a sense, you have the discursive thought is pretty much stopped, and also the application of mind to the object is stopped. At that point, you've entered into a deep state of concentration, and at that point, you wouldn't be able to understand any further instructions. So, when they're thoroughly exhausted, you've actually entered into the first jhana. Isn't being exhausted and suppressed? Well, some people might say suppressed, but you're, you know, in the process of suppressing it, you're totally exhausting it. But you could also,

[33:46]

you could also use those two dharmas to try to suppress those two dharmas. You could apply yourself to the idea of suppressing applied thought, and you could apply yourself to the idea of suppressing sustained thought, and you could use sustained thought on the using of those, using up of those two things, suppressing them. So exhausting and suppressing are somewhat related in this context. All these words are just ways to get the person into a state of trance, you know. And when they, and when you actually get in the state of trance, you've gone, you've gone beyond basic shamatha. Even before exhausting these two, even before exhausting applied thought and discursive thought or sustained thought, you still could be quite tranquil. And if you were tranquil in a state of shamatha,

[34:48]

and you still hadn't been exhausted, then in that state of tranquility you could, you could understand speech. So in some ways, in terms of like moving from tranquility to insight, it's in some ways better not to completely suppress these two by going, and then going into a trance, because in a trance you wouldn't be able to, you wouldn't be able to have speech because speech depends on these two. So these two are used to get into trance, and they're also used to speak. And when you use them completely to get into a trance, you won't be able to talk anymore, and you also wouldn't be able to understand speech. Okay? And now the sutra, what does the sutra say? The part we just did today at noon service, didn't we? Did it say, did it say applied thought and sustained thought? Is that what it said? Is that the language

[35:50]

at service today? So that's what they're talking about at noon service. They're talking about these two. They're talking about some states have both, some states have one, some states have none. Some states have both, some states have applied thought and not sustained, some states have sustained but not applied, and some states have neither. But didn't they say it a little differently? Why did they say it in an alternative way? Analysis and conceptualization. Yeah, I think it says analysis and conceptualization. Where did you get this applied thought and sustained thought? Where did you get that? Well, on John's meditation. Oh, you got it from John in meditation? Yes. So in this translation you did at noon service today, in this text, instead of saying applied thought and sustained thought, they say conceptual and analytical.

[36:52]

I think that's what it is. And that is Vittaka and Vichara. Yeah. So what we're trying today at noon service relates to Mahi's question. And where it had those four alternatives of when you have the conceptual and the analytical, they're talking about when you have Vittaka and Vichara, or just Vittaka and not Vichara, or just Vichara and not Vittaka, or neither. So we just talked about that today in the sutra. It's on page four. Right to this point. Vittaka as a conceptual? I think so, yeah. So in other words, you're applying your mind to the concept. And the other, you're being a little analytical, you know. Okay? And then, in the insight work, you want that one, particularly in Vichara, in the insight work. You need it.

[37:53]

Jeff? I just want to see if this is... If you have an object, the image of the object is not the object. That's sort of back in Gunakara... Yeah, that's sort of right. That's good. But the... I don't know if Gunakara makes that point. Oh, okay. But that's something we could discuss, certainly. That's right. When you look at objects... Actually, when you look at an object in direct perception, you're seeing the object. But, as I mentioned, direct perception happens just in a very tiny, rapidly changing moment. And very few people actually are aware of the momentary direct perception of an object. What most people are aware of is a conceptualization

[38:53]

of the sense perception of an object. And that usually happens when you have an object that appears, although it's changing, that there's, for example, some continuity, or a series of colors appearing to you. And you could have many colors appearing to you in a very short time. But a series of similar colors. And that's followed by mind consciousness. And then, after this series of continuous series of sense perceptions in sort of a similar realm, like a color, in a similar radiation wavelength, that's followed by a mind consciousness, which also very few people are aware of, that one flash of mind consciousness, but that sets up the possibility of all that to generate a conceptual cognition. And that's what we actually experience. But the conceptual cognition

[39:55]

is mediated by an image, and the image that mediates the sense object is not the object, of course. But we confuse it with the object. However, we're finally conscious of the color, after all that. And some yogis are concentrated enough so that they can actually see the actual instantaneous, and Buddha was one of them, so in his enlightenment experience he was actually seeing instantaneous perceptions of things like past lives. So, the awareness of the object is not separate from the mind. In either case, both conceptual and direct perception. So, the object, the image of the object, it's not the object, but the awareness of the object is not separate from the mind. Well, also the image of the object is not separate from the mind either. But the image of the object also usually looks like it's separate from the awareness.

[40:57]

Like you have an image of me right now, probably. It may seem like the image is out there separate from the awareness of the image. But it's not. The thing that creates a sense of distance or separation is also a thought construction. As a matter of fact, the thought construction is laminated to the image. But even in the realm of direct sense perception, there's also the sense that the awareness and the sense object are separate. And they're not. They're not different beings. So, when you speak of awareness of the object, when you talk about... It's not about the image of the object that you're aware of. Pardon? When we speak of awareness, are we talking about the image of the object or the object, or both? I guess both.

[42:01]

We're talking of awareness? Yeah. Yes. It sounds like when you're talking about awareness, it's so far you're just talking about awareness. But awareness is... This idea of awareness is not... The object is not... Awareness is not separate from the mind. That's right. The object is not separate from the awareness. And it's interesting to me that in Chinese, they have this... I think it's... I think it's this way. I can't remember exactly. I can't remember the characters, but anyway. Character X... We'll never know. Just make one up. So this character... This character is either this...

[43:04]

This character means to think. And then this character goes with two other characters. And one of them is like this. And the other one is... So this means... This means thinking. And this means thinking. And this is a passive marker. You put the passive marker with thinking in it, it means that which is thought of. And then you put this character which means active or ability. So this is the ability to think.

[44:11]

Or the activity of thinking. But they're just two different versions of the thinking. One aspect of thinking is that which is thought of. The other aspect of thinking is the ability to think of. But they're both dimensions of the same phenomenon called thinking. You have thinking of something. And the thing you're thinking of seems like it's separate from the ability to think of it. And that takes us back to this instruction that we mentioned just a minute ago. So the teacher says to the monk, that which is thought of, that's the environment. The ability to think is the mind. But all this is called mind and it's called environment. They're actually the environment.

[45:13]

One is the passive aspect of mind. And the mind, in this case, is the active aspect of mind. So then he gives the instruction, turn your mind around, reverse your thinking, and think of the ability to think. So the monk then starts looking not at that which is thought of, but he makes that which is thought of the ability to think of. So when he does that, then he says, now what do you see? He said, I can't find anything. Because you can't find the ability to think, although you can be aware of it. So that relates to... Yeah, I'm just trying to get that story about that. That's case 32 of the book of Surrender, by the way. Yes? I was just trying to get the mistake of mistaking

[46:14]

the image for the object. Right. And then putting that in the same story as this awareness is the same thing as the object, or not the same thing. No, that's a different thing. I mean, taking the image for the object is a mistake that's characteristic of all conceptual creations. We all make that mistake. And even if you have a correct perception, like if you have a conceptual cognition that phenomena are impermanent, which is correct, it's not a misconception, it's a correct perception, but it's mistaken because your conceptual understanding that phenomena are impermanent, you understand the impermanence of things originally, to the concept of impermanence. You're looking at... You always look... Whenever you're looking at common logic phenomena, you're looking... However, I'm not out here separating you. That image you have of me,

[47:17]

the imaginary separation, that's wrong. The imaginary Reb, that's, you know, you're correctly applying the imaginary Reb to this person. The imaginary Reb can be applied to me, even though, of course, it's not me. But it's properly put on me. The separate Reb is not properly put on me, or on anything. So it's two different mistakes. One is seeing something that's not there, is there, and the other is seeing something that is there, but through the mediation of an image. So my separation, if you see a separation, that's not there. That's mistaken. But the sense... But the image of me is correctly applied to me. May I interrupt for just a second? Do you think it's okay if we keep going? I don't know if there's anyone who's not here, who's... There is someone who's not here. Just... You should know that one. Is that clear to you?

[48:29]

Yeah. Getting clearer? It just seems like this mistake of... I think the term awareness and thinking is... I'm trying to understand what that means. In this particular case it says thinking, okay? But you wouldn't have to say thinking. You could also just say mind. I could have... This is the character that they used in the story. But you could also, I think, go like this. It might be okay just to go like this and just put the character from mind on here. Just have mind instead of thinking. So there's that which mind thinks of, that which mind is aware of, and there's the ability to be aware. The same could apply there. So mind, this teaching, has two aspects. An active aspect and a passive aspect. And part of us is passive. The world makes us. And part of us is active. We make the world.

[49:30]

So we are both... We are like that too. But now I think it's time to go to Zendo.

[49:37]

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